In the December 24 edition of the Detroit News, Michael H. Hodges writes about Save Our Symphony, “a new group that ran a full-page ad in Sunday’s Detroit Free Press alleging Detroit Symphony Orchestra management has been incompetent in managing its finances and intransigent in handling the nearly 12-week old strike. On Monday, the strike will tie the DSO’s 1987 work stoppage, which was the longest strike in the orchestra’s history. … SOS, they say, took shape after a Dec. 5 meeting between striking musicians and community members at the Traffic Jam and Snug restaurant in Detroit. ‘At the meeting,’ says musicians’ spokesman Haden McKay, ‘supporters said they wanted to be on their own. Their voice is stronger if musicians aren’t mixed in with it. It gives them more credibility.’ ‘This is the public talking,’ [SOS spokesperson Denise] Neville adds, ‘the public that wants to keep a world-class orchestra here in Detroit.’ … SOS, which numbers about 15, fears the DSO strike is just the leading edge of a larger movement to downsize Detroit’s cultural aspirations.”
Posted January 3, 2011
